An amazing thing happened this afternoon. I was driving back from Philly and I had a poem start in my head. It started so fiercely that I found myself first trying to write while driving, then memorizing every word that went through my head, and finally, pulling over once I got off the highway.
Poetry used to be everything. I couldn’t NOT write it. I loved the music and the economy of it. Then, somewhere around the end of college I got mad at it. At the workshop in Iowa, I was so annoyed by the poetry readings that I started writing poetry reading sattire, but even lost interest in that. I’m not sure what happened, but whatever part of my brain let poetry happen just shut down for ten or twelve years.
So: here I am, with a draft of a poem in front of me for the first time in over a decade.
Piece of Sun
The trees got up and walked to the other side of the room
when you touched me, I shined so bright
The dishes cracked, the bread got stale
The curtains, bleached and brittle,
crumbled in my hands when I tried to draw them shut.Light through my bare windows kept the neighbors awake
The dogs paced all night
and the children were late for school
A man complained to city council
Others prayed for my soul.Curious men and women with pinhole projectors
Lined up outside to watch me
All I could do was stand at the window
because I knew that if I left my house
this piece of sun would ignite the world.—
What’s it about? Me, of course. A long time ago.
